Misplaced Pages

#247752

92-616: Constructed in 1953 for "Bob" (Robert Masato) Hirohata, it was designed and built by George and Sam Barris, assisted by Frank Sonzogni. After the U.S. Navy, Hirohata took a 1951 Mercury Club Coupé and a blank check to Barris Kustoms. George Barris procrastinated 83 days, working on other cars, Hirohata demanded the finished car for Motorama , so the shop built the Hirohata Merc in only 14 very long days, with 10 workers. George Barris said he billed Hirohata "about $ 3,500" ($ 36,500 in 2021 dollars). Hirohata told Rod & Custom that he

184-605: A gross metropolitan product of over $ 1.0 trillion, making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York and Tokyo . Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984 , and will also host in 2028 . Despite a business exodus from Downtown Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic , the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed by Frank Gehry . On September 4, 1781,

276-673: A metropolitan area of 12.8 million people (2023). Greater Los Angeles , which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.3 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into

368-465: A daily driver for years, then placed it into storage. Ultimately, McNiel restored the Merc to her original configuration. The paint was done by Hershel "Junior" Conway at Junior's House of Color. George Barris (auto customizer) George Barris (born George Salapatas ; November 20, 1925 – November 5, 2015) was an American designer and builder of Hollywood custom cars . Barris designed and built

460-478: A diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic , Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production , the world's largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film . It also has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas. In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had

552-614: A group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels';. The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula "; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of

644-421: A new roof piece to be fabricated. Side trim was replaced with that from a 1952 Buick (the spears), augmented by grille teeth from a 1952 Chevrolet (three per side) and functional scoops. The front wheels are fitted with traditional sombrero ('47-'51 Cadillac) hubcaps. Skirts were added, fitting flush. Three '51 Ford grilles were used to custom-fabricate one, and the bumper was fitted with dagmars . Barris used

736-425: A profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics , also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King , culminating in large-scale riots . In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook

828-508: A record company contest involving the Beach Boys. Barris also modified cars for Hollywood stars. Some examples include a Cadillac limousine for Elvis Presley , custom Pontiac station wagons for John Wayne , a Cadillac Eldorado turned into a station wagon for Dean Martin , and a pair of "his & hers" 1966 Ford Mustang convertibles for Sonny and Cher . With the cooperation of American Motors , in 1969 he modified an AMX coupe into

920-477: A row, the car made numerous film and television appearances, usually in the background of diner scenes. Sam left the business in the 1950s. George continued in the business with his wife Shirley, and the business became Barris Kustom Industries. The company licensed its designs to model car manufacturers such as Aurora , Revell , MPC , and AMT , which spread the Barris name into the model builder community. In

1012-622: A series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum

SECTION 10

#1732787256248

1104-507: A single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries . Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within

1196-428: A transplanted Cadillac engine, creating the nickname "Mercillac" ("merk-ill-ack"), in the fashion of rodders of the period, who in the same way created Fordillacs and Studillacs . In 1955, the Merc made an appearance in the film Running Wild , for which it was painted gold over the original ice green. Hirohata sold the Merc, not long after the movie was released and the car changed hands several times. "The Merc

1288-607: A trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations. In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis , who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g ( / ɡ / ), reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais ( / l oʊ s ˈ ɑː ŋ h eɪ l eɪ s / ), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles] , by printing

1380-415: A vee-butted windshield, a very common customizers' trick in that era, rather than a one-piece windshield, which was available on the '53 Merc. He added Appleton spotlights , frenched the headlights (which were fitted with '52 Ford rings), and added '52 Lincoln Capri taillights. The exhaust pipes were routed out through the rear bumper, beneath the taillights, and a pair of radio antennae were frenched into

1472-438: Is Mount San Antonio , locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain , 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River , which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel . It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by

1564-651: Is a common problem in this population. Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks . Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire . The geologic instability has produced numerous faults , which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at

1656-452: Is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of

1748-437: Is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them. The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan , with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this

1840-502: Is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit , and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked

1932-488: Is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands , and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub , chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland . Native plants include: the California poppy , matilija poppy , toyon , Ceanothus , Chamise , Coast Live Oak , sycamore , willow and Giant Wildrye . Many of these native species, such as

SECTION 20

#1732787256248

2024-411: Is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California . With an estimated 3,820,914 residents within the city limits as of 2023 , it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City ; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California . Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of

2116-470: Is the subject of the title story in writer Tom Wolfe 's first collection of essays The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby . According to Barris, some of his first film work was making soft aluminum fenders for a police car that crashes into the rear of a Mercedes-Benz convertible in North by Northwest . The idea was to give the collision a comedic quality while also preventing serious damage to

2208-413: The 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by

2300-569: The AMX-400 show car, later used in a 1972 episode of Banacek . In the 1990s, NASA contacted Barris to request the designs of the Moonscope vehicle, a 1966 design that was a popular plastic car model for collectors. NASA engineers designing Martian rovers and vehicles were interested in the Moonscope's 6-wheel spider suspension and large wedged tires. Edward Lozzi, spokesperson for George Barris, stated, "NASA contacted my office and requested

2392-805: The Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey . Los Angeles

2484-657: The Back to the Future films, he would state that he had built a Back to the Future DeLorean without disclosing that it was a replica car. In 2007, Universal Studios officials sent Barris a cease and desist order demanding that he never again make "misrepresentations regarding any involvement with the Back to the Future films". The order called upon Barris to remove images of the flying DeLorean from his company's website and to restrict displaying any replicas of cars from

2576-547: The Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time . Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries , the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn

2668-661: The Hirohata Merc . Barris's company, Barris Kustom Industries, designed and built the Munster Koach and DRAG-U-LA for The Munsters ; and the 1966 Batmobile for the Batman TV series and film . Born in Chicago on November 20, 1925, Barris and his brother Sam moved to California to live with relatives. By his high school graduation, Barris had customized and sold multiple cars. He moved to Los Angeles at

2760-546: The Los Angeles sunflower , have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Mexican Fan Palms , Canary Island Palms , Queen Palms , Date Palms , and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a number of official flora: The city has an urban population of bobcats ( Lynx rufus ). Mange

2852-567: The San Fernando Valley , with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km ), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County , which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022 . It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023. The area that became Los Angeles

Hirohata Merc - Misplaced Pages Continue

2944-505: The respelling under its masthead for several years. This did not find favor. Since the 1930s, / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / has been most common. In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government. This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation. Common pronunciations in

3036-437: The " Wagon Queen Family Truckster ", based on a 1979 Ford Country Squire station wagon , for the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation . In 2005 The New York Times had Barris customize a Toyota Prius , which they called one of the most popular yet least attractive cars in the U.S. The budget was $ 10,000, and a further condition was not to chop the body or interfere with the hybrid mechanics in any way. In April 2010,

3128-514: The 1920s. Their father was a Greek immigrant from Chios . Their mother died a few years after the brothers were born. When Barris was three years old, Barris's father sent the brothers to live with an uncle and his wife in Roseville, California . By the age of seven, Barris was building and modifying model cars made of balsa wood . His model cars won contests sponsored by hobby shops for careful attention to detail. The brothers worked at

3220-507: The 20th century, Los Angeles substantially reduced the amount of housing that could be built by drastically downzoning the city. In 1960, the city had a total zoned capacity for approximately 10 million people. By 1990, that capacity had fallen to 4.5 million as a result of policy decisions to ban housing through zoning. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became

3312-458: The Angels'. The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or ( New Spain ) settlers were mestizo or mulatto , a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in

3404-567: The Barris Brothers designed and built the Hirohata Merc as a customer order based on Sam Barris's own custom car. The Hirohata Merc was shown at the 1952 General Motors Motorama auto show and was so popular, it overshadowed the best work of Detroit's top designers. It also established the early 1950s Mercury as a popular basis for custom car design. In addition, Sam built Ala Kart , a 1929 Ford Model A roadster pickup . After taking two AMBR (America's Most Beautiful Roadster) wins in

3496-571: The Batmobile until he sold it at a 2013 auction. Other television cars built by Barris Kustom Industries include the Munster Koach and the DRAG-U-LA for The Munsters , an Oldsmobile Toronado turned into a roadster used in the first season of Mannix , a 1921 Oldsmobile touring car turned into a truck for The Beverly Hillbillies , the fictional "1928 Porter" for the NBC comedy My Mother

3588-608: The Car , updated KITTs for later seasons of Knight Rider , and replicas of 1914 Stutz Bearcats for Bearcats! . Barris created a customized gold Rolls-Royce for actress Zsa Zsa Gabor . The golden Rolls-Royce displayed the detailed work of Barris and included hand-etched window glass by Robb Rich showing butterflies, roses, and hummingbirds. Barris built many novelty vehicles for other celebrities. These include golf carts for Bob Hope , Bing Crosby , Ann-Margret , Glen Campbell , and Elton John ; and 25 modified Mini Mokes for

3680-495: The Greek restaurant owned by their family and were given a dilapidated 1925 Buick for their help. They swiftly restored it to running condition and experimented with changing its appearance. This became the first Barris Brothers custom car. They sold it at a profit to buy another project vehicle. Before George graduated from high school, demand for their work was growing, and they had created a club for owners of custom vehicles, called

3772-476: The Kustoms Car Club. This was the first use of the spelling "Kustom", which would become associated with Barris. Barris attended San Juan High School and "rushed to sweep floors at a local auto body shop as soon as school let out". Barris resisted his family's desire for him to work at its Greek restaurant in a Sacramento suburb. He moved to Los Angeles after turning 18 years old to "become part of

Hirohata Merc - Misplaced Pages Continue

3864-629: The Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach , 1971 San Fernando , 1987 Whittier Narrows , and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast , which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis ; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011. The city

3956-502: The Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers ( Douglas Aircraft Company , Hughes Aircraft , Lockheed , North American Aviation , Northrop Corporation , and Vultee ). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen , of

4048-548: The Los Angeles region. In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war , marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in the siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered. Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California , part of the larger Mexican-American War . Americans took control from the Californios after

4140-685: The Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion , which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to

4232-523: The National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley . The expansion of the state owned Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled

4324-696: The San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights , the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills , and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains , which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point

4416-527: The Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called " June Gloom ". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon. More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security . Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March, generally in

4508-765: The Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles . Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition, as he was moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached

4600-483: The United Kingdom include / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z , - l ɪ z , - l ɪ s / loss AN -jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss . Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z / , as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es , "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish

4692-630: The age of eighteen to build custom cars for private buyers, including the Hirohata Merc in 1951. In the 1950s, Barris's business became Barris Kustom Industries. Barris's company designed and built vehicles for multiple television series in the 1960s, including Batman , The Munsters , and The Beverly Hillbillies . Barris's company designed and built custom cars for celebrities and private individuals. His company also built replicas of cars. Barris died in Encino, Los Angeles on November 5, 2015. George and his brother Sam (1924–1967) were born in Chicago in

SECTION 50

#1732787256248

4784-648: The auction block, on January 19, 2013. The final sale price, after a very intense bidding war, was $ 4.6 million to car collector Rick Champagne from Arizona . Over a decade after the release of Back to the Future Part III , Barris restored one of the DeLorean time machine stunt cars. Barris later purchased a stock DeLorean and converted it into a replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean, which he used to promote himself and his company. While Barris never officially stated that he had anything to do with

4876-769: The birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park . In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army 's South Central standoff in 1974 and

4968-632: The boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes . Major earthquakes that have hit

5060-485: The boundary of a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb on the coast, Csa otherwise). Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C). Autumn months tend to be hot, with major heat waves a common occurrence in September and October, while the spring months tend to be cooler and experience more precipitation. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout

5152-404: The city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having

5244-537: The city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley . The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from

5336-560: The city, causing $ 12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal , one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. In 2022 , Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor , making Los Angeles

5428-497: The city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as

5520-598: The continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of

5612-477: The demise of the city's privately owned electrified rail system , once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park , which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center . In the second half of

SECTION 60

#1732787256248

5704-617: The difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July. Due to

5796-498: The early 1960s, Barris, along with other well-known customizers ( Gene Winfield , Dean Jeffries and the Alexander Brothers ) reworked production cars for Ford's "Custom Car Caravan" and "Lincoln/Mercury's Caravan of Stars". The traveling exhibits were designed to appeal to younger car buyers. Barris also used the body of Pulsator (designed by Nye Frank ) on his snowmobile dragster show car Ice Kutter . Barris

5888-608: The emerging teen car culture" and opened the "Barris Custom Shop" on Imperial Highway in Bell, California . George and Sam Barris built their "kustom" designs for private buyers. George also built and raced his own cars briefly. Soon, Hollywood studio executives and stars wanted the custom cars for personal use and as film props. Robert E. Petersen publicized the Barris cars through car shows and by publishing George's how-to articles in Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines. In 1951,

5980-399: The expensive Mercedes. He also built and supplied cars for the 1958 film High School Confidential and loaned some of his customs for the "future" scenes in the 1960 film adaptation of H. G. Wells 's The Time Machine . Other Barris-built film cars included a modified Dodge Charger for Thunder Alley , a Plymouth Barracuda for Fireball 500 , the futuristic Supervan for a film of

6072-552: The films. Back to the Future writer/producer Bob Gale said, "George Barris had absolutely nothing to do with the design or construction of the DeLorean time travel vehicle." Barris was married to Shirley Nahas from 1958 until she died in 2001. They had two children. Barris died on November 5, 2015, in his sleep at his home in Encino, Los Angeles, California , fifteen days before his 90th birthday. Los Angeles Los Angeles , often referred to by its initials L.A. ,

6164-407: The form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while

6256-482: The historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street , the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic . During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles the regional capital of Alta California . By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within

6348-435: The industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression . By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics . During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and

6440-466: The inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm). Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to

6532-519: The largest U.S. city to have ever had a woman as mayor. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games , making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times. The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km ), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km ) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km ) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of

6624-514: The longer name. The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that the pronunciation / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / lawss AN -jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation / l oʊ s ˈ æ ŋ ɡ əl ə s / lohss ANG -gəl-əs emerged from

6716-490: The lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C), on January 4, 1949. Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills . During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and

6808-505: The lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979; freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles

6900-546: The mountainous terrain of the surrounding region, the Los Angeles area contains a large number of distinct microclimates , causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away. The city, like much of

6992-679: The original designs of the Moonscope from Barris. They revealed they were interested in studying the Barris designs for the Martian vehicles. Barris gave them permission and NASA sent people to meet with him". Between 2002 and 2006, Barris also designed two custom Cadillac hearses for episodes of the cable television series Monster Garage . Barris' company often builds replicas of non-Barris designed vehicles from other TV series, including The Monkees Monkeemobile , Starsky & Hutch ( Ford Torino ), Power Rangers (Turbo Vehicles) and Knight Rider KITT . Barris also designed and built

7084-514: The passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act . When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles . Smog

7176-486: The present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of

7268-457: The rear quarter panels. The Hirohata Merc was painted in two shades of green, a total of thirty coats, which were applied by Junior Conway. The interior was upholstered with tuck-and-rolled naugahyde. The dash, seats, and headliner were white with dark green inserts, matching the exterior lower body color (below the Buick spears). Hirohata later replaced the original Mercury flathead engine with

7360-536: The rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood . The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California . Los Angeles has

7452-563: The rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall . However, Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center . Los Angeles has a two-season semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh ) with dry summers and very mild winters, but it receives more annual precipitation than most semi-arid climates, narrowly missing

7544-487: The same name, a gadget-filled Mercury station wagon for The Silencers , and a sinister rework of a Lincoln Continental Mark III for The Car . In the 1960s, the Barris firm became heavily involved in vehicle design for a television production. At the beginning of the decade, Barris purchased the Lincoln Futura , an extravagantly designed concept car . It remained in his collection for several years, until he

7636-620: The special George Barris design edition of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro Spirit was introduced to the public for the first time at a VIP media event at Community Chevrolet, one of the largest Chevrolet dealerships in the United States. On November 29, 2012, Barris Kustom and George Barris announced the sale of the Number 1 Batmobile at the Barrett-Jackson car show and auction held in Scottsdale, Arizona. The world-famous vehicle went on

7728-635: The worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom . LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index. Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown , Warner Center , Century City , Koreatown , Miracle Mile , Hollywood, and Westwood , skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above

7820-582: The year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas

7912-502: Was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932. While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962, with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021. Brief, localized instances of hail can occur on rare occasions, but are more common than snowfall. At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010, while

8004-435: Was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply . The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland , ensured

8096-515: Was not". The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since the era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga ( Tongva : Iyáangẚ ), meaning "place of the poison oak ", which would one day be the site where

8188-600: Was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve , on the village of Yaanga . It became a part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence . In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War , Los Angeles and

8280-414: Was repainted, sold, crashed, neglected". An owner, Robert Waldsmith, who used it as his daily transportation, was hit by another car, requiring repairs and new paint. Another owner, Doug Kinney, was an employee of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, who repainted it lime green. In 1959, a teenager, Jim McNiel, bought it for $ 500, for seven years painstakingly restored it and kept the car his whole life. McNiel used it as

8372-435: Was shocked when he got the bill, "I had to sell everything I owned and put my great aunt in hock to pay for the car, but it was worth it." It started out as a 1951 Club Coupe . Nosed , decked, and shaved, the top was chopped four inches in front and seven inches in back, and the vertical B-pillar was reshaped so that it curved forward at the top. The rear window had its posts removed, and was raked steeply forward, requiring

8464-529: Was unexpectedly asked by ABC Television to create a signature vehicle for their Batman television series. As filming would begin in a few weeks, there was not enough time to create a new design from scratch. Instead, Barris used the Futura as the base for the Batmobile . Barris hired Bill Cushenbery to modify the car, which was ready in three weeks. The show's popularity added to Barris's fame. Barris owned

#247752